Slide 1 TECO on the WIS, Seoul, 6-8 November 2006 Slide 1 TECO on the WIS: Stakeholder Session THORPEX and TIGGE Walter Zwieflhofer ECMWF

Slide 2 TECO on the WIS, Seoul, 6-8 November 2006 Slide 2 Accelerating improvements in the accuracy of one-day to two weeks high-impact weather forecasts for the benefit of society, economy and environment …

Slide 3 TECO on the WIS, Seoul, 6-8 November 2006 Slide 3  THORPEX was established in May 2003 by the 14 th WMO Congress as a ten-year international global atmospheric research and development programme  THORPEX is under the auspices of the WMO Commission for Atmospheric Sciences (CAS)  THORPEX Goals:  To reduce and mitigate natural disasters  To fully realise the societal and economic benefits of improved weather forecasts, especially in developing and least developed countries

Slide 4 TECO on the WIS, Seoul, 6-8 November 2006 Slide 4 THORPEX International Science Plan  Research on weather forecasts from days lead time  Four research sub-programmes:  Predictability and Dynamical Processes  Observing Systems  Data Assimilation and Observing Strategies  Societal and Economic Applications  Emphasis on  Targeted observations  Ensemble predictions

Slide 5 TECO on the WIS, Seoul, 6-8 November 2006 Slide 5 AMMA – THORPEX Collaboration

Slide 6 TECO on the WIS, Seoul, 6-8 November 2006 Slide 6 Driftsondes – to fill critical data gaps

Slide 7 TECO on the WIS, Seoul, 6-8 November 2006 Slide 7 Driftsonde in the vicinity of TC Gordon Tropical cyclone Gordon

Slide 8 TECO on the WIS, Seoul, 6-8 November 2006 Slide 8 TIGGE  THORPEX Interactive Grand Global Ensemble  Key objectives of TIGGE:  Enhanced collaboration on development of ensemble prediction, internationally and between operational centres and universities  New methods of combining ensembles from different sources and of correcting for systematic errors (biases, spread over- /under-estimation)  A deeper understanding of the feasibility of interactive ensemble system responding dynamically to changing uncertainty (including use for adaptive observing and on-demand ensembles)  The development of a prototype future Global Interactive Forecasting System

Slide 9 TECO on the WIS, Seoul, 6-8 November 2006 Slide 9 The TIGGE core dataset  Global ensemble forecasts to around 14 days generated routinely at different centres around the world  Outputs collected in near real time and stored in a common format for access by the research community  Easy access to long series of data is necessary for applications such as bias correction and the optimal combination of ensembles from different sources

Slide 10 TECO on the WIS, Seoul, 6-8 November 2006 Slide 10 Phased implementation of the archive  Phase 1: multiple instances, low development effort  Later: distributed approach, higher development effort ECMWFNCARCMA Phase 1 Archive Centres

Slide 11 TECO on the WIS, Seoul, 6-8 November 2006 Slide 11 TIGGE Phase 1 data providers  Already sending data routinely:  ECMWF  JMA  UK Met Office  Other contributors that will start sending data soon:  BOM  CMA  CPTEC  KMA  MSC  NCEP

Slide 12 TECO on the WIS, Seoul, 6-8 November 2006 Slide 12 Homogeneity of the TIGGE database  Homogeneity is paramount for TIGGE to succeed  The more consistent the archive the easier it will be to develop applications  There are three aspects to homogeneity:  Common terminology  Common data format  Definition of an agreed list of products  Data providers must ensure that they provide their data according to the agreed TIGGE standards  Archive Centres cannot accept the additional responsibility of transforming data into the right format

Slide 13 TECO on the WIS, Seoul, 6-8 November 2006 Slide 13 Common terminology is required  Agree to use the same names (which has implications for existing applications)  All fields should be described with the same attributes (dates, level, step, parameter, etc.)  Required for cataloguing and search NCEPECMWF precipitation (precip)TP (Total Precipitation) mean sea level pressure (prmsl)MSL T 2 meters (t2m)2T

Slide 14 TECO on the WIS, Seoul, 6-8 November 2006 Slide 14 Choice of data format: GRIB edition 2  Only WMO standard that supports ensemble data without the need of local extensions  The NAEFS community is committed to using it  The TIGGE Archive Centres  Have identified the list of GRIB2 codes, tables and templates to use for each of the fields of the TIGGE database  Are providing guidelines (best practices) on how all TIGGE fields should be coded in GRIB2  Have a website that provides examples of properly encoded model output  TIGGE will speed up the migration to GRIB edition 2

Slide 15 TECO on the WIS, Seoul, 6-8 November 2006 Slide 15 Internet Bandwidth FTP get between ECMWF, NCAR and CMA (a few months ago)

Slide 16 TECO on the WIS, Seoul, 6-8 November 2006 Slide 16 Completeness  The objective is to have 100% complete datasets at the Archive Centres  Completeness may not be achieved for two reasons:  The transfer of the data to the Archive Centre fails  Operational activities at a data provider are interrupted and back filling past runs is impractical  Incomplete datasets are often very difficult to use  Most of the current tools used for ensemble forecasts assume a fixed number of members from day to day  These tools will have to be rewritten

Slide 17 TECO on the WIS, Seoul, 6-8 November 2006 Slide 17 Achievements so far  Commitment from institutes willing to act as Archive Centres has been secured  Commitment from many contributors has been secured  Definition of the database content (list of variables)  Data format has been agreed (GRIB2)  Transport mechanism for the data ingestion has been chosen (LDM)  Data access policy has been established  TIGGE Archive Centres have started to collect data  Active collaboration between CMA, NCAR and ECMWF has been established – Archive Centres work as a team

Slide 18 TECO on the WIS, Seoul, 6-8 November 2006 Slide 18 Milestones for 2007 and 2008  Provide access to researchers via the infrastructure already existing at the Archive Centres  Enhance the TIGGE infrastructure to enable real-time access to forecast data to contribute to THORPEX activities related to:  International Polar Year field campaigns  Beijing 2008 Olympics

Slide 19 TECO on the WIS, Seoul, 6-8 November 2006 Slide 19 Will TIGGE be compatible with the WIS?  TIGGE Archive Centres are ECMWF, NCAR and CMA  All three are represented in the ICG on the WIS  Link within ECMWF  Project management for SIMDAT, one of the WIS building blocks  Chairing the TORPEX TIGGE working group

Slide 20 TECO on the WIS, Seoul, 6-8 November 2006 Slide 20 Relationship to the WIS  THORPEX is under the auspices of WMO Commission for Atmospheric Sciences (CAS)  The TIGGE data sets will become a key resource for  Research into multi-model ensembles forecasts  Development of societal and economic applications based on multi-model ensemble forecasts  The TIGGE data is therefore an excellent candidate for the type of cross-cutting information that users will be able to discover and retrieve through the WIS